Starting a New Used-Car Window
Sticker Printing Business
In most cases, window sticker
companies are going to use the
combination of two, possibly three of our
products.
...and...
Our DeskLot
product is what you will use out on
the dealers lot to collect the
vehicle data, enter and decode the
vehicle VIN, print the window
stickers & buyers guides, match the
vehicle photos, and upload the
dealers vehicle data to an Internet
based product such as
WebLot.
DeskLot
runs on a Windows® based
notebook or slate computer running
the Windows® operating system.
Our MobileLot product is a
free
Android® application that runs on
your large-screen Android® phone
or tablet running the Android®
mobile device operating system. The
application is used on the dealers
lot to scan the VIN barcode, decode
the VIN, take vehicle photos, print
window stickers & buyers guides via
a Bluetooth or WiFi printer, and
instantly publish the vehicle data
to a dealers
WebLot dealership account.
The WebLot
enterprise web-based backend is
the Internet product where you will
send your dealers inventory and
photos to. It allows your dealers
and their employees to login and
update prices and other vehicle
data, view leads, post to
CraigsList, embed vehicle inventory
into their website, and more. It
also handles tracking changes to the
dealers vehicle data so that it can
automatically send all of the
outbound vehicle data feeds to the
various 3rd party classified sites
that the dealer subscribes to. In
addition, it also provides you with
all-in-one-place management for all
of your dealer clients, their
inventory, configuration, and
logging.
If you don't use
WebLot or
a similar product, then your dealers
are going to have to contact you
directly each time that they want to
make a change to a vehicle, leaving
you to do all of the updating
manually, as well as configuring and
manually sending all outbound data
feeds to 3rd party classified sites.
The First Step:
If you'll be using our
DeskLot
software:
Download the FREE 30 day
trial. This is the product your
companies field techs will be using
out on the lot on a daily basis to
print window labels for the
vehicles, collect the vehicle data,
and publish the data to the
Internet. Take your time... get to
know the software. It is a
professional-grade solution with
many options and customization
features. If you get stuck anywhere
or have questions, press F1 for
help, or feel free to
contact
our support staff and they'll be
happy to help you get up and going.
After you've installed DeskLot,
there are a couple of short
tutorials that will help you
learn window sticker design
within the DeskLot product. We
strongly advise that you take
the time for the 5-10 minutes
tutorials as they will save you
time and give you a more
productive understanding of how
to modify and design window
stickers. From within DeskLot,
press F1 for help. Click Help
Topics in the upper-left, click
Window Sticker Configuration
Utility Help, then see the two
links in the Tutorials section.
DeskLot
includes an
additionally priced,
optional VIN decoder/exploder.
The VIN decoder uses
locally stored Chrome® data to
decode vehicle data from the
vehicle VIN, such as equipment,
MPG data, colors,
year/make/model/trim, etc. The locally stored
part is important since, while
servicing many dealerships, your
computer may not have a reliable
Internet connection. We suggest
that you try this option while
in your 30 day trial period to
see if it is an add-on that you would like to
continue using once your
trial period is over. To enable
the VIN decoder, from the
vehicle list screen within DeskLot, click the VIN Decoding
menu at the top of the screen,
click Enable, and then follow
the prompts.
If you'll be using our
MobileLot
Android® application:
Download the
app for FREE from the Android®
Market/Google Play onto your
large-screen Android® phone or
tablet. Then use Account ID 0 and a
Password of demo to test drive it.
When you're ready to move forward
with MobileLot, you'll need to
create a WebLot account and add a
dealership account to it. While
getting started, we suggest just
adding a few vehicles to a dealer
account in WebLot so that you can
get accustomed to it all. It won't
cost you much... maybe a few dollars
with our à la carte WebLot pricing,
and you'll get to fully use the
WebLot product and get the feel for
how it all works and ties together.
After you've had the chance to
install and get a bit accustomed to
either DeskLot
or MobileLot,
you'll want to
create a WebLot account and get
accustomed to that product, as this
is basically the master control
center that allows you to drive your
window sticker business to
manageable success.
If you haven't had the chance yet,
feel free to
contact
us to have us setup a
WebLot demo
account for you. Otherwise, go ahead
and create your
WebLot account. It's not going
to cost
you anything until you either start
adding vehicles to dealership
accounts, or selecting
monthly
packages for your dealers.
Initially, we suggest that you just
add a few vehicles to a test
dealership account, which is not
going to cost
you but around $2.25.
For DeskLot
Users:
After you've
logged in and added a
dealership account to your new
WebLot
account, select "Dealers", then
click the dealer account to edit
it. Now click the "Uploading
Inventory" tab. About half way
down the page, see the "Publish
This Dealers Vehicles With
DeskLot" section. This option
allows you to download and
import into
DeskLot, a pre-configured
configuration for sending the
dealers vehicles and photos from
DeskLot
to the dealers
WebLot
dealership account.
For
MobileLot Users:
After you've
logged in and added a
dealership account to your new
WebLot
account, you'll want to
customize and/or create some window
stickers via the "Stickers"
menu, as well as explore
promotional text and warranty
entries for dealers by editing
a dealer account and seeing
the "Helpful Links" section.
The window stickers, buyers
guides, promotional text, and
warranty entries that you
configure within the
WebLot
web-based administrative backend
are what show up as available
choices within the
MobileLot
Android® application.
Step 3:
Now it's time to just take your time
and get to know the products. If you
have questions, need help, or just
get turned around, don't hesitate to
give us a call so that we may assist
you. After all, we want your company
to be a success too!
Now, what you do with your company
is up to you, however, we
advise new clients to start out
small. Start with just one or two
smaller dealers... dealers who will be
more forgiving when you make
mistakes and fumble as we all do
when we're just starting out.
Starting small will also allow you to
learn "deep", which in the end will
allow you to grow quicker and with a
firmer foundation for success.
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